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The Professional Knife Sharpener

I could scream when I think of the hundreds of old pictures that I accumulated (found on the Google machine) that I lost with a hard drive crash a few years ago. I'm not going to try to find them all over again but I'll do what I did before and save them when I see them and posting them here. I'll start tonight by posting some I found from a quick search.

I really love seeing the old ones because it makes me realize how I'm continuing on a trade that's one of the oldest.

I agree. One of the best things about being into Sharpening is that if you traveled back in time and met anyone past the stone age, after you broke the language barrier, you could just talk shop. Amazing.

Yep, it's one of the few (though totally awesome) man skills I have. Stuck in the Middle Ages because the slipshod time machine you built in the basement from a Tesla coil and a pile of Old Milwaukee cans backfired? No problem! You're already gainfully employed and the envy of the unwashed peasantry!

There's poems about knife sharpening, too, including a great one by Walt Whitman, from the Civil War era "Leaves of Grass."

Sparkles from the wheel (from Leaves of Grass)

WHERE the city's ceaseless crowd moves on, the live-long day,
Withdrawn, I join a group of children watching--I pause aside with
them.

By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging,
A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife;
Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone--by foot and knee,
With measur'd tread, he turns rapidly--As he presses with light but
firm hand,
Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets,
Sparkles from the wheel.

The scene, and all its belongings--how they seize and affect me!
The sad, sharp-chinn'd old man, with worn clothes, and broad
shoulder-band of leather;
Myself, effusing and fluid--a phantom curiously floating--now here
absorb'd and arrested;

The group, (an unminded point, set in a vast surrounding)
The attentive, quiet children--the loud, proud, restive base of the
streets;
The low, hoarse purr of the whirling stone--the light-press'd blade,
Diffusing, dropping, sideways-darting, in tiny showers of gold,
Sparkles from the wheel.